Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Happy New Year!

I hope this post finds you and your family happy and healthy! We had a wonderful holiday that was both busy and full of fun. I even took off nearly two weeks from work and had a blast spending time with Keira, catching up with family and friends and getting projects done. The following are several photos highlighting just a few of our memorable moments.

Grace and Keira built an awesome snowman

Keira loved seeing her friends, William and Grace

We spent an afternoon at Chuck E Cheese's with Keira's good friend, Myaura

Keira really enjoys playing dress up and posing for the camera

Keira's friend, Noah, visited from Hawaii and we had a blast at Nick Universe

Opening gifts on Xmas Eve with our family

We spent NYE with our friends from Hawaii

Mark built a sledding hill on our deck stairs - it's awesome!
I'm enjoying my time back at Best Buy as a consultant. It's amazing how much less stressful it is when I can focus on a core project and not worry about the politics and extraneous work often involved as a direct employee. Sure I still get frustrated and stressed, but on the whole, it's not on the same level as when I was at Seagate, Best Buy or Select Comfort. So far, I'm really enjoying the life of a consultant. My contract technically ends at the end of Feb, but I'm hoping the business I'm on will fare well and my contract will be extended.

Mark is still at Seagate and continues to be a top-performer. Is that really surprising?! He also enjoys early morning basketball three days a week and usually leaves the house by 5:00am to do that. He's also much more disciplined than I am. I've considered getting up early and working out before work, but so far it's never happened...and likely will never happen.

Keira loves Kindergarten and has made many new friends. She's learning a ton and her reading and writing abilities have improved exponentially. It's amazing to watch her progression. She's even writing sentences. Even though the spelling isn't always correct, it's usually phonetically correct. I'm pretty sure the only thing I learned to write in Kindergarten was my name. My memory must be poor or education has improved that much - maybe both. Either way, we've been so happy with her school and her teachers.

2013 is off to a good start for our family and we hope it is for yours too!